Following up on this morning's piece, lets have a little evidence for the proposition that there will be reporters who dig up stuff and the network that will interpret andanalyse it, and the mass news media will have to find something else to amuse themselves.
Alex Beam at the Boston Globe makes a fair fist of something humorous with We who are about to die salute you, although there's an edge in there that tells me he isn't a happy camper about all this citizen journalism stuff.
It all happened so fast. One day we were printing half a million copies, delivering them all over New England. Then -- poof! -- it was like everyone heard the ''new media" dog whistle and stopped reading. The kids were getting their news from the ''Politics" forum on craigslist. (Sample posting: ''Hypocracy is not our style.") Once the senior citizens figured out the comic strips and the crosswords were free on the Web, they didn't need us anymore.
I guess we had only ourselves to blame. We were so hung up on that old news paradigm. It's hard to imagine that we used to send reporters to places like China and Russia, or even Somerville, to report on social and political trends. It all seems so 20th century.
Yup, sounds like a sneer alright, with an entree of contempt for his readers. Then, there's this from David Pogue's Circuits email, a techehad iof ever there was one.
I quote his email because the cogent part of his posting at Catching Human Rights Violations on Camera is apparently behind their firewall. Mhmm, irony is not dead.
Peter Gabriel, the pop star... described the progress of an outfit called Witness (www.witness.org), which he co-founded in 1992 for the purposes of what he calls "video advocacy."
What he means is helping native citizens film human-rights violations as they happen, so that the world can see what's really going on. It's much harder for wealthy countries to ignore the violence and oppression, Gabriel said, when they're watching a video of it.
So Witness sprouted up to supply camcorders and training to, so far, 200 human-rights groups ("partners") in 60 countries. It sounded like such a cool and important project that I decided to interview Gillian Caldwell, the group's executive director, for today's e-column.
[...] DP: Isn't this technology new to, say, impoverished Africans? How do they know how to operate the camcorder, ship the tapes back, etc.?
GC: Most of the people we're training have never held a video camera before, so the relationship begins with an intensive, onsite training program that teaches them how to shoot, as well as what to shoot and why.... unlike, say, the Rodney King incident, our primary intention is not to capture human rights abuses in action, although that has on occasion happened. Instead, most of our footage highlights the aftermath.
For example, a reluctant Philippine government is now prosecuting the murderers of activists who were legally pursuing ancestral land claims--after footage taken of the attacks was broadcast nationwide in the Philippines and delivered to the Philippine president at the World Economic Forum. While Witness's partner did not actually capture the attack on tape (it took place early in the morning while everyone was sleeping), they were first on the scene of the attack, and captured irrefutable evidence.
[...] DP: At TED, Peter Gabriel mentioned a shift from camcorders to cameraphones?
GC: Staying ahead of the technology curve is a major challenge for us. Communications media have changed dramatically in the 14 years since Witness was founded.
In the coming months, we will launch an initiative called the Witness Video Hub (www.witness.org/technology). Our hope is to let people around the world use cellphones and computers to upload media to a central Web site built to promote human rights.
We're facing an unprecedented frontier, with digital technology and the "participatory culture" it has inspired poised to explode. Witness needs to be at the forefront of this transition.
DP: Once the hub site goes up, how can you be sure that the filmed events are genuine?
GC: We're still thinking this through. Currently, we're committed to an open and participatory environment, allowing anyone anywhere to contribute footage. There may be a limited amount of material that we will be able to authenticate, but our goal is to not play a big role in this area. We don't want to serve as gatekeepers ourselves, but to allow for peer review to foster a sense of community responsibility and accountability.
Some people get, see opportunity and roll up their sleeves, others see only a threat to their privileged positions and resort to snark. There's no guarantee about who wins this game; corporations with pocketsful of politicians are fighting back, but I know which horse my hopes are riding.
You seem to have got the niche from the root, Awesome work
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